Saxophones Sioma alto sax

[RichardB]

Thanks to all respondents so far for the very helpful advice.

Can anyone suggest sites other than eBay where I ought to be looking, for this (shy? rare? reluctant?) SIOMA SAX.

Here is another photo of my father, Alex Burns, with a sax. I beleive this would have been taken uiin the 1920s. I casn;t help wonder if this might have been the first SIOMA.

I also wonder if there is anyone out there who remembers the shop of Shaftesbury Avenue.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Can anyone suggest sites other than eBay where I ought to be looking, for this (shy? rare? reluctant?) SIOMA SAX.

Apart from the saved search on Ebay (which should notify you as soon as one is on there, I can only suggest to keep searching on Google etc.

Anyone who is selling one would presumably list it on the internet and so Google should pick that up. How long it would take for a live listing on a site to show in Google may depend, but you'd hope that it should be indexed within a few days.

Otherwise you could try contacting the vintage instrument dealers and asking them to keep an eye out, although them knowing you want one could mean that the price is not as competitive as if they were just putting it out there for the world.

 

[RichardB]

Very helpful, Pete Thomas. Thank you!

 

[Pete Thomas]

And I think for this make you will have more luck with UK (and possibly EU) dealers than you will with US or international ones

 

[Steve Marshall]

I've seen a handful of these. Some are definitely Pierret made. Others may be a different maker - not certain who.

 

[Steve Marshall]

Here's an advert from the 1930s

 

[Colin the Bear]

Baritone reed 6/- a doz. The good old days. 🙂

 

[Jimmymack]

And a tenor for £22/8/6

 

[Targa]

Baritone reed 6/- a doz. The good old days. 🙂

The average weekly wage in 1930 was around £1/10/- so a quick estimate would make that the equivalent of over £100.
I don't know how much bari reeds are so is that good bad same?

 

[Colin the Bear]

They go for around £40 for a box of 5 so, I am paying £100 a dozen.

 

[Tenor Viol]

Baritone reeds 6/- a dozen, so 30p for 12.... so 6d / 2.5p each.... They're about £6 each now 240x the cost...

 

[MMM]

Sioma reeds may be a little more difficult to track down!

 

[DartmoorHedgehog]

I also wonder if there is anyone out there who remembers the shop of Shaftesbury Avenue.

Not personally (I tend to stay away from London and I suspect I'm probably too young anyway - when did it close?) but I did find an advert when I was looking into the origins of my Sioma clarinet. If Alex Burns was your father I expect you'll have quite a collection of this sort of thing, but here it is just in case it's interesting:

 

[DartmoorHedgehog]

"Saxophone Fingering Clarinet" sounds a weird one! Presumably that would only really help sax players over one octave unless they made it conical bore as well - but then it would just be a black soprano sax.

Personally I think it's the wrong way round anyway. A saxophone with clarinet fingering would be a big improvement IMO - saxophone fingering is just so clunky and finger-tangling compared with clarinet (I do realise I'm saying this on the wrong forum 🙂 ). Although there would still be the problem of conical vs straight bore (octave overblow vs 12ths)

 

[jonf]

Those old prices just show how incredibly expensive it used to be to play musical instruments. In 1930 it would have taken 15 weeks average wage to buy a tenor saxophone. Now it takes about 5 days work at the average wage. Even in the time I've been playing it's become massively more democratic, playing opened up to the masses. My first sax cost £240 used in 1980, and it wasn't very good. That's about £850 in current terms, which would now buy two, better, new tenor saxes.That's based purely on inflation over time. When you take into account the real rise in average wages, the relative affordability of playing music today is even more striking.

 

[Targa]

Those old prices just show how incredibly expensive it used to be to play musical instruments. In 1930 it would have taken 15 weeks average wage to buy a tenor saxophone. Now it takes about 5 days work at the average wage. Even in the time I've been playing it's become massively more democratic, playing opened up to the masses. My first sax cost £240 used in 1980, and it wasn't very good. That's about £850 in current terms, which would now buy two, better, new tenor saxes.That's based purely on inflation over time. When you take into account the real rise in average wages, the relative affordability of playing music today is even more striking.

Whenever I see a 'number' like that anywhere I always have to go and look, wonder how I managed before google. It says £611 for the average weekly wage, 30k a year looks high to me, anyway I assume you mean a reasonable second hand tenor?

 

[jonf]

Reasonable second hand or cheap new (Thomann or G4M) was what I was thinking of. I know from experience that a G4M tenor is a better sax than my 1970s Buescher

I get what you mean about £30k looking high as the average salary - I remember when £18k was considered a good salary - but it is about right. Bearing in mind that someone working full time on the minimum wage would be on almost £18k, and that the average is distorted by significant number of people earning very high salaries, that £30k is indeed the average.

 

[Targa]

Reasonable second hand or cheap new (Thomann or G4M) was what I was thinking of. I know from experience that a G4M tenor is a better sax than my 1970s Buescher

I get what you mean about £30k looking high as the average salary - I remember when £18k was considered a good salary - but it is about right. Bearing in mind that someone working full time on the minimum wage would be on almost £18k, and that the average is distorted by significant number of people earning very high salaries, that £30k is indeed the average.

And another look out of curiosity - the minimum wage hourly rate is about what I got for a week when I started work.

 

[Tenor Viol]

Two things 'distort' average wages for UK: London and high earners. In real terms, it is much easier to be able to start playing an instrument. It's a shame that access to teaching etc has dwindled so much over the last 30 years or so.

 

[Colin the Bear]

"Saxophone Fingering Clarinet" sounds a weird one! Presumably that would only really help sax players over one octave unless they made it conical bore as well - but then it would just be a black soprano sax.

Personally I think it's the wrong way round anyway. A saxophone with clarinet fingering would be a big improvement IMO - saxophone fingering is just so clunky and finger-tangling compared with clarinet (I do realise I'm saying this on the wrong forum 🙂 ). Although there would still be the problem of conical vs straight bore (octave overblow vs 12ths)

Saxophone fingering is a misleading description. It's just buttons instead of naked tone holes. Helps with builders hands or loss of sensitivity/feeling.